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Saturday, 2 August 2014

Linux script to install Easy2Boot to a USB drive

The latest version now includes a fmt.sh bash shell script which can be run from a linux OS and it will format a partition as FAT32 on the specified drive, copy over the E2B files and then run bootlace to install grub4dos. There is also a fmt_ntfs.sh script to create an NTFS E2B drive (v1.83+).

I have tested it in a VM (VBox) using Linux Mint Debian Edition (64-bit) and Ubuntu 14.04.
Of course, there are lots of linux distros and it may not work on all of them.
As it formats a partition, you need to be careful when using it - you have been warned (but it has been independently tested here)!

The E2B download is on this page (linux users will probably not need to use the much larger DPMS version which you will only want if you are intending to install XP from E2B).

Once you have made your E2B FAT32 USB drive, just add all your ISO files to any one of the menu folders - e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU or \_ISO\LINUX.

Alternatively, you can add your payload files into the downloaded files first, before you run the fmt.sh script. This is useful if you want to make a fresh, contiguous E2B drive and it is often quicker to make a fresh drive, rather than running defragfs to make any added/changed files contiguous.

Here is a screenshot of the script in action. You need to run chmod first before you can run the script.
The script can be found in the \_ISO\docs\linux_utils folder after extracting the files from the download (the folder also contains defragfs which you can use to make your ISO files contiguous - only works on FAT32 volumes).

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E2B v1.83+ includes a fmt_ntfs.sh script to format a drive as NTFS, plus the udefrag utility to defragment an NTFS drive. Read the ReadMe file for details.